Joe Rantz

Joe Rantz is the main oarsman that Brown focuses on in The Boys in the Boat. Joe is described as being tall, blonde, prodigiously strong, and determined. He had a difficult upbringing, with his mother dying when he was four-years-old and his father remarrying a cold, younger woman who insisted that he abandon Joe. Joe’s stepmother was jealous of Joe’s dead mother’s memory, and she saw Joe as a constant reminder that her husband had loved another woman first. For the first few years, Joe was passed around from relative to relative. Finally, he wa left to his own devices when he was only ten-years-old. Even at such a young age, Joe worked hard to provide for himself, working two jobs while juggling his schoolwork, sleep, and searching for food. Joe was abandoned again, this time in an unfinished farmhouse, when he was...